Crystal Venom (36 page)

There was complete silence for some time, until the still very fast voice of
Blackjack
was heard. ‘It is logical. I have detected many attempts by tiny machines to gain access to me. Each has been thwarted.’

The major nodded. ‘Yes, it makes a certain sense. OK, leave the recorders alone.
Blackjack,
please advise me in the future of anything out of the ordinary. Fritz, locate a couple of the devices and find out what makes them tick and also a way to shut them down. And while you are at it, get me a map of their distribution throughout
Basalt.
We may have a future as free citizens after all, comrades. That gives me hope. Now we just have to figure out how to get a message to them to find out for sure. Lilly, what’s the status of the gardens, please? I note that additional roses are now blooming throughout the ship and I thank you so much for that. They are beautiful specimens and the scents are superb.’

Lilly smiled. ‘The trees are growing again. A few cutbacks and re-splicings were required, but we’ll have the first crops of fruit available within weeks. The herbs are now available as are a percentage of the leafy vegetables. The grain-type crops will be a little longer. I’m sorry, Marko and Minh Pham, they were the worst damaged. The meat-producing plants are also making good progress. Sadly, some of the more specialised hybrids that Stephine created will need her touch. We have kept most of them alive, but it seems she had additional knowledge, so some of the coffees, for instance, will not be available until her return. The bodies of Games Board personnel were rendered down into compost and are now aiding the growth as well. By the way, Jasmine and I have certain protocols to contact
Chrysanthemum
and the other senior Haulers to seek their assistance once we are able to communicate again. They would gladly intercede on our behalf with the Administration and the Games Board.’

Harry said bluntly, ‘Yeah. Thanks. So is there anyone who does not agree that we may have been manipulated once again?’

There was complete silence around the room as the major nodded and agreed.

‘Yeah, thought as much. Right, good work, people. Let’s crack on, shall we?’

~ * ~

‘Marko.’

‘What’s on your mind, Flint?’

‘Topaz was building anther version of me for that Admiral, before he was damaged. What is the state of that build? Would be useful to have another of me around.’

Marko patted the spider’s head. ‘Ha! Had completely slipped my mind. How about we go find out? Topaz, the latest spider build. What’s its status, please?’

‘Ninety per cent complete,’ the design and fabrication AI said. ‘Am holding it at that stage as per our priority list, although I do not have a great deal on at the moment. Shall I continue with it? Who is going to imprint it?’

Marko grinned. ‘I shall talk to Minh Pham. He has always liked Flint, and I am sure he would be happy to be its guardian. Yes, finish it. You know what, why not just give that one to Minh, as I know he will be delighted to have an ACE in his life, and start on another for the admiral — on the off-chance we ever get to speak with him again on civil terms!’

~ * ~

Two days later a nervous but grinning Minh was given the card; the deep green spider was out of the construction tank and ready to be given life and woken to full sentience. It was almost identical to Flint, except it had a larger abdomen housing an upgraded power plant and a tiny, compact, offensive double-pulse laser. Marko had had to promise Flint that ‘Yes, he could have a laser like that!’

Minh read the long sequence of numbers and letters that awakened the mechanical spider to full sentience. He added: ‘Welcome to the universe and to the crew of
Basalt.
I name you Ngoc.’

The machine flexed its limbs as its eyes seemed to twinkle a little more, and with a voice of deeper timbre than Flint’s, said: ‘Hello, Minh Pham, and my greetings to you all. Ngoc: precious jade. A good name, my thanks. Goes with my overall colour.’ Ngoc looked around the room, seeing Glint and his friends. ‘So you are the other ACEs. I am honoured to be in your company.’

With that the latest ACE gave everyone a bow, then climbed up Minh’s proffered arm to be shown around the ship.

Harry grinned and hugged Julie, looking at Nail, who was sitting at their feet. ‘So, Nail, how are the hands?’

‘Different, Harry, very different,’ the cat replied. ‘To utilise them efficiently, I need to have adjustments made to my hips so I can stand more easily. Do you think that Marko would approve?’

Harry laughed. ‘I’m sure he would, but what about Stephine?’

Nail yawned, purely for effect. ‘Oh, I’m sure that I can do a few extra things for Stephine that will convince her it was a good idea.’

With that Harry watched a hatch open in the side of Nail as he swapped his hands back to paws and he raced off down the corridor to catch up with the other ACEs.

~ * ~

A few days later the major made an announcement.

‘All crew, message from our still-nameless transport, via
Blackjack,
that in one hour we will be off-loaded beside a large comet so we can replenish our fuel reserves, then we pick up Stephine and Veg ... we’ve been given the coordinates. Just as well we decided to retain the equipment we made the last time we had to use a comet to refuel. Everyone is to be at their station in fifty minutes.’

Marko, with the ACEs and Minh, was working on Lilly’s Hanger. They had just lined up the fuel pumps in the refurbished engine compartment to bolt them into their housings.

‘OK, Flint, Ngoc, activate the couplings and lockdowns,’ Marko instructed. ‘Glint, bolt the thing in and let’s test it before we go.’

Bringing up the remotes on his wrist screens, he started the warm-up processes for the units that would be placed against the comet to melt the ice and process the water. Keeping an eye on Minh and the ACEs, he watched the housings open to accept the pumps, as the onboard computer that Minh was monitoring tested each then locked them down.

Marko nodded in approval. ‘Checks out. Glint, go ahead and place the locking bolts. Good work. Few more hours and Lilly can have her toy back.’

The emerald-green mechanical ACE was curious about his surroundings. ‘Can we see what our transporter looks like, please, Marko?’

‘Sure, Ngoc. Have a look at the screens.’

Outside the ship, the huge finger-like plates encompassing them split apart, allowing them to see the local starfield views. Marko started to recognise some of the stars, realising that they were not far from where they had dropped Stephine and Veg off months before.

Patrick, who was controlling the camera views, followed the retracting segments of the alien craft as it folded down into itself then rotated within its length as it slowly rolled and moved towards the huge bulk of the fifteen-kilometre-diameter comet. They could see that parts of the surface of the great ball of ice had been cleaned of its blackened debris, revealing deep blue water ice.

The major smiled as he fed images of the huge, squashed-ball shape set in grandeur against the starfields, with soft starlight lighting it from every angle, into his data blocks. The star the comet was orbiting was so far distant it was merely the biggest star in the background.

‘Interesting,’ Harry said. ‘Wonder how many times this has been used as a refuelling spot, boss.’

‘Haven’t a clue, but Patrick is taking lots of additional images to find out how many different-sized probes have been used. I note that the transporter has left us plenty of room so I suppose it would be rude not to accept the invitation! In your own time, please, Harry.’

Harry piloted
Basalt
down towards the surface until the two objects were almost touching in the microgravity field.

‘Good,’ the major said from his control pod. ‘Minh, please deploy astronomical drones to gather as much information for Patrick as possible. Jasmine, launch the defensive drones — have no idea of what might be here so always best to have something ready if we need it. Lilly, you are in charge of the recon drones. Fritz and Julie, launch in your Skuas and hold outer defensive station whenever you are ready to go.’

On his side screens, Marko saw all the hardware being launched as
Basalt
was positioned against the comet by Harry. Checking the visual feeds coming from the two-metre-diameter heads of the heating and pick-up pipes, Marko looked for the purest areas between the cracked, scored surface of the ice. His radar unit showed the surface to be relatively clean in two areas set twenty metres apart, so he manoeuvred the pickups individually onto the ice’s surface. As soon as they touched, three rigid spears were fired into the ice, locking the heads against the surface, and they started to drill themselves into it.

When the heads were three metres into the ice the pipes flashed red hot, melting the ice, then rapidly cooled, allowing it to refreeze and seal the units in. The heads below started to heat up the ice with microwaves which generated steam that flowed back up the pipes, through the filters, and through the condensers aboard
Basalt,
fifty metres above them. The heads themselves started to slowly rotate, swinging from side to side, reaching further into the chambers they were creating.

Once satisfied, Marko reported. ‘We have clean water coming on board, boss. Good values, and a few low-grade radioactives to be had as well. At current flows, we will have full tanks in about sixteen hours.’

The major sounded a little distracted as he replied. ‘Good. We know where we are as well: the opposite side of the star from where you dropped Stephine and Veg off. Start making antimatter as soon as you have sufficient water.’

Bringing up the additional screens, Marko started to prep the antimatter conversion units. Then, over the next day, with a few quick breaks for meals, he routed the precious water around the ship, filling every possible tank on every vehicle including topping up the tanks in the Gardens. As units of antimatter became available as well, he shunted them into
Basalt’s
engine feeders, the two landers and then finally filled
Basalt’s
own spare containments to capacity. Finally, he filled the Games Board shuttle tanks as well.

While Marko had been concentrating on his tasks, Julie and Fritz had been quietly patrolling the area looking for anything that might give them problems, but the only occurrence was the huge transport gently investigating each of them as they moved around their designated areas. Julie likened the experience to a whale looking carefully at a fish, wondering if it needed some kind of assistance. As they watched, the huge ship slowly moved to gently touch the hull of
Basalt
before turning away and heading starwards at an exponentially increasing speed, its drives showing bright against the intensely populated starfield of the great Milky Way.

Julie keyed her microphone. ‘Patrick, did you see that?’

The AI sounded buoyant. ‘The transport, you mean, Julie? Yes, it was like a grandmother kissing a baby and wishing the newborn well. Sadly, it would not communicate with me, in spite of everything I tried. The message I got from
Blackjack
is that it wished us safe journeys and to look after the blessed one. That final request has me intrigued.’

At his station, listening to the exchange, Marko allowed himself the tiniest of smiles as he heard the major say, ‘Lilly, could you swing one of your drones across to look at the area where the transport was taking on water?’

‘Already on it, Major. I see nothing except an oblong-shaped, perfectly smooth depression over a large area. Would say that it uplifted approximately twenty-four thousand tonnes of water. I note many similar depressions and looking at this comet’s orbit I would conclude that it is an artificial one. Definitely a refuelling point, with three different refuelling methods identified, including one where it appears the ice has been ground out as if it were removed in pieces. The other two are similar methods to our own, including two that appear identical to ours.’

At his command station the major frowned in thought. ‘Interesting. So Admin possibly knows of this? Good work. Marko, what are you doing? Do I really need great lumps of ice around the ship?’

Marko had detached the ends of the steam inflow pipes from the primary intakes and had three engineering drones on each pipe, allowing the steam to condense and freeze on the ship’s outer hull; he could be seen to be having fun, allowing the ice to build into interesting shapes.

Patrick replied before Marko could answer. ‘He is doing it on my suggestion, Major. Deposits of ice will break up the sensor silhouette of the ship. I am having the drones carve it into additional bulges and the like. A little extra insurance, if you will.’

‘Ha! Impressive, Patrick. Carry on, and how much longer do you need?’

‘A few more hours should see us finished. I note the rendezvous coordinates are relatively close and we have fourteen hours before we need to be there. And besides, I think that Marko is rightfully obsessive about getting as much fuel as possible.’

Marko laughed. ‘Me? Obsessive? Never. Just pleased that we have additional antimatter in storage as well. We never did get around to returning those containment modules, did we? Oh, well, must put it on the to-do list.’

‘An interesting snippet of information for you, Major,’ Patrick said.

‘What’s that, Patrick?’

‘Looking through the data streams from the recon drones which mapped the comet, I have identified several points where technology is evident. Would appear that there are reaction engines buried under its surface for manoeuvring and possibly changing the orbit of the comet. I suppose that it would be more sensible to call it an asteroid, in fact, as I believe that it will not loop back around the local sun any time soon like a comet, as its orbit is planetary. I have also identified a control node of sorts. Interesting deep-imaging radar returns too. Appears octopoid in construction, maybe. Do we have time to have a look?’